Liners have been run in as more hole is being made beyond existing casing. The bit is secured to the lower end of the liner and the liner is rotated with a drill string that includes a running tool that grips the liner to rotate it to make more hole. When the liner is properly positioned it can be cemented through the bit that is ultimately milled out to make even more hole. The running tool that supports the liner had a feature that allowed it to be released from the liner after the liner weight was shifted to the surrounding casing. This was a good feature in the tool as it told the operator at the surface, before the cement was pumped that the running tool could be released from the liner before the liner was cemented. After this indication, the cementing took place and pressure built on the wiper plug that was dropped after the cement was pumped to set a seal. While this was done in a single trip, it did not involve liner expansion.
With the advent of expansion of liners came techniques of running the liner while drilling. When it came time to support the liner so that it could be cemented the tools available had no provision for a release of the running tool from the liner after the liner was expanded into a supported position against the surrounding tubular. In essence, the task of supporting and sealing the liner to the surrounding tubular took place without the knowledge if the release of the running tool was possible. The cementing job commenced with the possibility that the cement could set up in the region of the release mechanism for the running tool and thus prevent release of the running tool with the liner now cemented in position. If the running tool could not then release the well could become a total loss or at minimum necessitate a time consuming and expensive procedure to try to salvage the well so that is could be fully completed and ultimately produced.
What is needed and is provided by the present invention is a one trip system for running in a liner while drilling where the liner can be supported by expansion and then tested for release of the running tool from the now supported liner. If the running tool releases, weight is set down and the liner is cemented. After cementing, the running tool is lifted again to allow the mandrel to again be closed so that another application of pressure allows a piston or stacked pistons to advance a swage assembly yet again to expand a seal into contact with the surrounding tubular. The tool can then be removed from the fully supported and sealed liner that has already been cemented. An emergency release can be actuated by rotating to the right to release slips that hold the tool to the inside of the liner. The tool is arranged so that an actuating piston for a slip assembly is in pressure balance before a ball is seated regardless of whether the packoff for the annulus between the tool mandrel and the liner is below the swage as in the larger sizes or above the swage as in the smaller sizes. Mechanisms are provided in the larger sizes to block a pressure balance passage when the actuating piston for the slips to retain the tool to the liner is needed for a second stroke to actuate the seal after the cementing. Provisions are made to open the mandrel passage after the seal is set by expansion so that a wet string is not pulled. These and other aspects of the present invention will be more readily understood by a review of the various embodiments described below when reviewed with their associated drawings while recognizing that the full scope of the invention is determined by the appended claims.